Some US roads won't reopen to traffic at residents' request

NEW YORK: In the United States, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, many roads were closed to cars in order to make way for soft mobility, much to the delight of pedestrians and cyclists.

While most of these roads have since been reopened to traffic, some have been permanently closed to cars at the request of local residents.

As many as 157 municipalities in 35 states closed some of their roads to car traffic in 2020 and 2021.

A study unveiled earlier this year by Stephan Schmidt, a professor of urban and regional planning at Cornell University in New York, reported that in 94% of the cases, these thoroughfares were subsequently reopened to motorists, less than six months after their closure.

The remaining cases are therefore interesting exceptions.

Whether in Washington, DC or in San Francisco, it is invariably residents who lobbied, and won, to keep cars permanently out of these areas.

This is, for example, the case in Rock Creek Park located in the city of Washington, DC, where a road called Beach Drive has been off-limits to cars over nearly 5km since 2020, and that's not about to change.

Previously, up to 8,000 cars a day used this road. Today, locals and visitors can enjoy cycling, rollerblading or skateboarding in safety.

And it's the same story in San Francisco, with JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park. When the road was closed to traffic, it was quickly transformed into a recreational area where adults and children can play sports and, there too, enjoy bicycles or rollerblades in safety.

It should be noted that, in this case, the decision to leave the road permanently closed to cars was submitted to the decision of voters.

In the US, as elsewhere, there is a need to rethink car traffic in and around cities. In this respect, the pandemic has, in some cases, provided interesting new ideas to explore.